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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24751207">Scraps Coming Together</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kibasniper/pseuds/kibasniper'>kibasniper</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Psychonauts (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Acts of Kindness, Bullying, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Understanding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:15:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,330</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24751207</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kibasniper/pseuds/kibasniper</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Kitty and Franke destroy Chloe's research. Bobby helps her recover it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chloe Barge &amp; Bobby Zilch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Scraps Coming Together</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Oh, I’m so sorry. Did this journal belong to you? I thought they were the scribblings of someone who escaped from the insane asylum across the lake.”</p><p>Kitty’s words went through one ear and out the other. Chloe’s mouth dropped open, the sharp fluttering of her heart taxing her lungs. She sucked in a shaky breath and exhaled, fogging up her faceplate, almost wishing it would make the scene before her disappear.</p><p>But she was firmly rooted in reality when her haze cleared. She slowed her breathing, trying to control her sudden palpitations. Sweat dampened her brow and slicked her palms, the quick onslaught of perspiration too wet for her liking as she rubbed her arms on her shirt. Her eyes shifted between Kitty and Franke, both of them wearing smiles so sickening they made her stomach flip and blood boil.</p><p>Kitty pinched a corner of paper in Chloe’s notebook. Rolling her wrist, she cleanly tore it out and flipped the page over her shoulder. It fluttered, the breeze briefly taking it before it plummeted to the ground, matching several other pages of her research. </p><p>A few squirrels had taken to nibbling on the corners, their bushy tails and heads flicking from side to side. Insects crawled along her neatly penned articles about the planet’s foliage. Brown dirt smudged diagrams and nebulas she had sketched. Franke stomped her heel onto a pencil drawing of her latest rocketship model, her squawking laughter breaking Chloe out of her stupor.</p><p>“Wh-what is the-what is the meaning behind this cruel and unusual action?” she shouted, quickly falling to her knees. She gathered a few pages and pressed them to her chest. Her helmet wobbled as she snatched her papers, looking up only to find Kitty tearing out another page and flicking it at her face.</p><p>“I told you. We thought this notebook belonged to a crazy person,” Kitty said, waving her hand. She checked her nails, which had been painted in pastel hues. “You totally understand, right? Like, if anyone found a notebook with all of this crazy stuff written in it, you’d trash it A-S-A-P.” She clapped her hands together. “Seriously, it’s like I’m defending the camp from a creep. Wouldn’t you do the same?”</p><p>“I most certainly would not,” Chloe growled, crawling on her hands and knees. She rolled up her papers, her mind buzzing with what order they were supposed to be in, but she could not remember which page came next. She grit down on her molars, biting back a groan as frustration plagued her.</p><p>“Someone writing about the ingredients in the cafeteria food and then going to the next page to jot down the times Chops hangs out at the creek to play guitar, wouldn’t you think that someone insane had, oh, I dunno-” Kitty giggled, reminding Chloe of a hyena. “-broken into Whispering Rock and spied on us? It makes real sense, Chloe.”</p><p>“Totally messed up, but still, totally believable,” Franke added, sniggering.</p><p>Chloe did not dignify them with a response. They were mocking her. They had sullied her research and treated it like garbage. All of her hard work compiling information about this strange containment facility, creating models for her spaceship, and general curiosities she had come across in her studies, Kitty and Franke had sunk their fingers right into the heart of her work and tore it out. They forced her to scramble on the ground to grab the papers, fighting the breeze blowing some away and the girls’ polished shoes when they kicked some just out of her reach, forcing her to crawl again.</p><p>“Man, she looks more like a worm than an alien,” Kitty sneered, her insults pinching Chloe’s skin.</p><p>Chloe glared over her shoulder at Kitty, but her anger shifted to surprise. Kitty still held on to her notebook, the plastic spirals notably bent and unwound. Kitty teased the sharp tip with her pinky finger, pushing it back and forth, and Chloe’s eyes widened, mouthing her shock while Franke grinned so hard that her cheeks turned red.</p><p>Kitty yanked the tip out of place and opened her other hand. Out slid the rest of her pages. At least fifty more sheets of her precious information scattered before her very eyes. The wind rustled them, causing a few to sink behind bushes and trees. Others became wrapped around uprooted tree roots, their sharp edges puncturing through the papers. Although a majority had simply fallen around Kitty and Franke, the girls stomped on them, leaving dirty footprints behind.</p><p>“Stop that!” Chloe cried, her voice pitching, hoarse. She scurried forward on her hands and knees and snatched what she could. She heaved the pages from underneath Franke’s rather large shoes. As Franke stumbled back, grimacing at the sight of the smaller girl gasping and shoving papers together, Chloe couldn’t fight the tears which welled in her eyes when Kitty giggled.</p><p>“Oh, my God!” Her voice hitched with amusement. “You are such a little weirdo. Getting so upset over something as dumb as this, it’s like watching a celebrity meltdown.” She chuckled again when Chloe hurried over to a bush and grabbed three more pages, wincing when thorns pricked the top of her palm. Faint droplets of blood bubbled in the pin-sized wounds, the sight making Franke tilt her head and Kitty roll her eyes. “Well, anyway,” Kitty said, slipping her hand into Franke’s, “we have to get going. Next time, don’t put your weird stuff underneath your pillow where Franke can see it. Lesson learned, okay?” She winked, her long mascara sharpening the spirals in her eyes.</p><p>“And-and remember to pay the toll next time,” Franke called, her voice wavering slightly as Kitty guided her back onto the paved path.</p><p>Kitty laughed louder than Franke as they abandoned Chloe to her task. She sat on her knees, her hands filled with information which looked like disjointed scrawlings if anyone else were to read them. She swallowed thickly, feeling like she could have gulped down her tongue. The squirrels and salamanders scuttled around her, their shuffling obnoxious to her ears as she began counting each page.</p><p>She came up with sixty-five. Five pages were missing.</p><p>Chloe resisted the urge to slam her papers to the ground. She screwed her eyes shut, pain in her chest without a single visible injury. Her lungs seemed like they would not expand, as if a heavy weight was placed on top of her. She felt like her heart was about to collapse into her stomach, but she dragged herself to her feet and scanned the nearby woods filled with only tall trees and thick bushes.</p><p>She could not fathom what proper reason they had to destroy her notebook. That morning, she had crossed the bridge when they were not guarding it and assumed she did not need to pay them. They had not confronted her about it at breakfast or lunch periods, either. But she now believed they had been plotting against her all day, taking advantage of her naivety and stealing her notebook right under her nose. Kitty had decided she needed to be punished for what Chloe assumed was a crime against her person, her pride being the victim when she analyzed their behavior.</p><p>Chloe thought she left such cruel earthlings back at school, but she supposed that innate desire to hurt others was a part of all humans. </p><p>Trembling as she got to her feet, she squeezed her eyes shut and willed away the tears. She was not going to cry. This moment did not call for tears. She needed perfect vision to locate her work, and even a misty glaze would impede her.</p><p>But footsteps crunching on the grass caught her off guard. She clutched her papers to her chest and whipped her head around. Her helmet jostled, obscuring part of her view of the approaching earthling.</p><p>“Um, Chloe?”</p><p>She fixed her helmet, recognizing the scratchy drawl of her fellow space ambassador. Bobby itched through his hair, his mouth a thin line with his misshapen teeth hanging over his lower lip. In his hands were five sheets of paper, each carefully tucked together as if he was presenting a teacher an assignment, but before he could say anymore, she hurried over and snatched them out of his grasp, his gasp cutting the tension between them.</p><p>A brief feeling of guilt washed over her when he stuttered out an apology. It was unneeded. He hadn’t hurt her. But he toyed with the hem of his shirt and refused to meet her gaze as if he was guilty of something she didn’t know. She also hadn’t meant to act in a manner that he could misconstrue as rude, but what Kitty and Franke had done fueled her anxiety, the bubbling fear that he would somehow shred her papers prompting her to wait for him to finish speaking.</p><p>“You, uh, I’m-I’m-my bad,” he blurted, quickly crossing his arms. “I was, I was just walkin’ around when I saw those papers on the ground. Thought you might’ve lost ‘em, but…” He trailed off, his uncertainty swapping for an emotion Chloe could not place when she inspected him. Fire burned in his eyes, and his bushy eyebrows came together. He hunched forward, observing the papers tightly clenched in her hands and gripped his knees. Lowering his voice, he asked, “Did somebody do something to your notebook? Was it one of those squirrels?”</p><p>She smelled smoke and quickly shook her head. As he dispelled his pyrokinesis, and the poor squirrel whose tail had been lit dashed off behind them, she said, “That is the case, but it was not the animals. Kitty and Franke-” She rubbed her elbow. “-well, I suppose they decided that because I did not pay them this morning for their toll at the bridge leading to the lodge, that I needed to pay in this unbecoming manner.” She shook her head and sighed. “I’m not quite sure if I will ever fully comprehend their way of thinking.”</p><p>“Fat cat,” Bobby hissed, straightening and smacking his fist into his open palm. “Oh, when I get my hands on her-”</p><p>“No,” she quickly interjected, raising her hand.</p><p>Bobby twitched, his shoulders rising before slowly falling back down. He offered his hands, Chloe staring at the small calluses on his long fingers. He asked if he could help, his tone gentle, a voice he used only around her from her observations.</p><p>“How?” she asked, curling her fingers around the frayed edges.</p><p>“I can, um, I can hold ‘em while you sort it all back to how you want it,” he said, grinning, a bit of sweat on his brow. “I don’t really know what goes where, and it looks like those might be outta order.” An uneasy chuckle left him. “Ain’t it better if I hold on to the loose ones while you set this straight?”</p><p>Such generosity felt like a salve covering a wound. Shock and curiosity made her eyes widen as she gazed at him. How he wrung his hands and grinned at her, it was exactly opposite of how Kitty treated her. He watched her with concern in his beady eyes while she had glared with such discrimination that it made Chloe sick.</p><p>“And you would do that for me,” she flatly said, wishing she had inflected her gratitude better when he cringed. She cleared her throat and held out her papers. He accepted them, keeping his hands flat and pinned them down with his thumbs, only lifting them to let Chloe take her papers one by one to put them in order.</p><p>It was an arduous process. She understood his impatience, having seen and documented his cruelties on those occasions when his temper flared at their fellow PSI cadets. But he stood and waited while she worked, carefully compiling her papers in the middle of the woods with only the sounds of nature surrounding them. The similar earthling terms “inch by inch” or “step by step” seemed to suit the situation, idioms she knew that would never fit Bobby under normal circumstances, but she couldn’t hide the small smile on her face as her notebook came back together with his help.</p><p>“Thank you,” she said as soon as the last paper slipped into place. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start. She knew where a stapler was in the lodge to properly recreate her notebook, and she was satisfied knowing her problem would be fully solved soon enough.</p><p>Laughter stumbled over his tongue. He rubbed his neck and avoided her eyes, saying, “Aw, no sweat, no sweat. Anytime, ya know? But it’s-but it’s not like I really, uh, did much.”</p><p>The sentiments he presented confused her. She thought he accepted her gratitude, but to use an earthling expression, he downplayed it. It might have appeared like he was only standing there while she did the work, but it was his offer and earnesty which compelled her appreciation, especially after such cruel treatment.</p><p>“You have helped me. That is definitely worth thanks,” she said, Bobby meeting her gaze. She grinned as soon as she connected with him. “It’s not what most humans would do. No wonder you were chosen to be the ambassador of your species.”</p><p>Bobby itched behind his ear. “Yeah, yeah, uh, gotta keep up those…” He shrugged. “...intergalactic whatsits and stuff.”</p><p>“Exactly,” she affirmed with a quick nod. She leaned closer on her tiptoes. “With that in mind, would you like to hear about what I’ve been researching? Perhaps it will be of interest to you as a Fathian.”</p><p>“Sure!” he blurted, clenching his fists, his grin toothy despite his lack of teeth.</p><p>They sat together, comforted by the shade of the trees surrounding them. She showed him her shuttle designs and oddities she had noticed around camp, Bobby listening to her every word. And she felt wanted, happy to have someone who valued her opinions and ideas on the lonely rock known as Earth.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i saw a bad take on twitter that boiled down to bobby abusing chloe as kids, and it was such a gross mischaracterization of both of them that by the time my vision returned, i had written this fic.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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